Courtesy of Victoria Smith | Tommy Castro and the Painkillers will wrap up the Fall Blues Fest on Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

Courtesy of VictoriaSmith | Members of Tommy Castro and the Painkillers are, from left, Randy McDonald, Castro, Michael Emerson and Bowen Brown. "We've had some great lineups over the years, but this one is real comfortable, and easy," Castro said. "It just happens pretty naturally."

Four decades into a career highlighted by six Blues Music Awards, including the ultimate one, B.B. King Entertainer of the Year in 2010, Tommy Castro still loves getting out on the road to perform.

And one thing you can count on when the lifelong resident of the San Francisco Bay area comes east is that he's going to stop in Berks County, where he knows he'll receive a warm welcome from good friends.That scenario will play itself out again Saturday when Castro and his band, the Painkillers, fresh off the release of a CD that exudes the energy of a live performance, put the exclamation point on the three-day Fall Blues Fest at Building 24 Live in Wyomissing."We have some friends in the neighborhood," Castro said during a phone interview the day before he and the Painkillers lit out for Florida to begin a two-month tour that takes them up and down the East Coast then west toward Salt Lake City.Those friends are Tim and Sue Achenbach, whom Castro got to know on blues cruises, which led to them inviting him to play the annual summer solstice party at their Sinking Spring home.He also has played shows for the general public at the City Park Bandshell, Gerald Veasley's Jazz Base, various Berks Jazz Fest venues and last year's inaugural Fall Blues Fest, so he's no stranger to these parts."We wouldn't want to miss it (playing here) while we were passing through," said Castro, whose easy laugh punctuated a conversation about his new record that broached topics such as politics, friendships, love and loss, the last in regard to his blues comrade and friend, B.B. King, who died in May.

11 original songs

The CD, "Method to My Madness," contains 11 original songs, many of which Castro broke out for the first time during October shows in San Francisco and Napa. The locals, he said, aren't shy about letting him know how they feel.

"They have their expectations," he said. "They'll let me know when they're not happy with me. Especially now, with Facebook, they don't have to come up and tell you in person. They can tell you with some distance. It's easy to do, so they let me know. But everybody seems to be responding really well to this record."It begins and ends with its two most topical songs, "Common Ground" and "It's All About the Cash."The former, a "semi-gospel, R&B kind of thing," Castro said, wonders why we can't all just get along, which got him to thinking about his friendship with Achenbach and how they share many things in common despite being on opposite ends of the political spectrum."Left, right, black or white, we all dream about the same things at night," Castro sings."The moral of the story," he said, "is we're more alike than we are different, and it would be great if we concentrated on that a little more."Since it is sort of a '60s kind of everybody-get-together song, I was feeling the music was taking me down the road of the Staples Singers, and that was the kind of approach I had to it, so it's not very heavy-handed."Equally political, and maybe a bit more heavy-handed, is the funky "All About the Cash," in which Castro sings, "The world's at war and people are dying/It's really not so mystifying/Read between the lines you'll find/It's all about the cash."Castro co-wrote the song with Bay area blues harpist Rick Estrin, who played Building 24 in August, and said it typifies the organic sound he had in mind for the record as a whole: capturing the live studio experience, warts and all."The sound of us jamming together was really apparent on that song," he said.

Getting or losing the girl

In between those two politically charged gems are nine others that, in the time-honored blues tradition, tend to explore themes of pursuing, getting or losing the girl.

"I didn't want the whole album to be about heavy trips," Castro explained. "I wanted to get back to doing basic blues stuff."Examples can be found in the slowed-down "Two Hearts," which Castro said draws on the style of one of his early influences, Elvin Bishop."It's been a long time since I just played a basic slow blues, and that song just sounds like we did when we started out playing in a saloon here in North Beach in San Francisco," he said. "We had a live album we did there, the first thing we ever recorded. That song is something that could've come from that time period."Castro said he worked on the song with another hometown talent, Joe Louis Walker, also a recurring visitor to Berks, and together they hearkened back to blues music's roots."It's always about you and your woman," he said, laughing. "A million stories could come out of that little association, that relationship."There's both extremes (on the album), too. For 'Lose Lose,' I had my ex-wife in mind. But 'Died and Gone to Heaven' is about my current situation, the woman I'm with now for the last seven years.""Yeah, I wised up a bit over the years and made better choices, but mostly," he conceded, "I got lucky.""Method to My Madness" concludes with its only cover, B.B. King's "Bad Luck," which Castro decided to add as a tribute to the man he was fortunate enough to tour with as an opening act for two summers in a row.

Hooked on B.B. King

He said that as a youngster, his heroes were Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, the Rolling Stones and Michael Bloomfield, and he remembers hearing Bloomfield talking about King, so he went to the record store and picked up a copy of King's "Live in Cook County Jail." He immediately was hooked. He would rush home from school, break out the record and his guitar, and try to imitate the master.

"I got my B.B. record, and then I went, 'Woah. this is a whole 'nother ballgame,' " he said. "Even as a kid I knew what it was. I was like, 'This is the real thing. This is where all these guys are getting it from.' "When he reflects back on their friendship, Castro tends to drift back and forth between past and present tense, knowing full well that King lives on forever through his music."B.B and I were definitely on good terms," he said, "and he was really nice to me. He knew what a big deal it was for all of us to get to hang out with him, and he makes it seem like no big deal. He'll talk to you like you're talking to one of the guys in his band or something. You just automatically get real relaxed, and you just keep looking at his face going, 'Damn, that's B.B. King' (laughs). I'm sitting here talking to B.B. King. I can't believe it.' "Castro said he once asked King, who was 89 and still touring when he died, why he kept on keeping on into his old age."I said, 'You must have enough money by now, so what keeps you going?' " Castro said. "And he just said, 'Well, I really do love to play.' He'd just as soon be out on the road playing. That's what he loves to do."Which puts the two on common ground.Castro enjoys his time at home in sunny San Rafael, north of San Francisco, where he mountain bikes and stand-up paddleboards on the bay to keep fit, but he also looks forward to road trips like the current one, which sees him playing 17 shows in 18 days later in the month."It's a good life," he said, "because I love being at home, but then I get to go out and go around the country and play to different crowds. If I just stayed home all the time, I know I would miss it."Contact Don Botch: 610-371-5055 or dbotch@readingeagle.com.